Perfect Strangers

by Jan Stryvant

  For a spell that took Sean only a minute to cast on himself, it took him twenty minutes to cast it into coin. Some of that time was because he had to restart the process three times, as he realized he wasn't doing it properly. Once he was finished, he used his monitor program on it, which he could only do because he was holding it. He put in the same 'allow all' exceptions he had on his own, one for Roxy, one for Jolene, and of course, one for him.

  Then pulling out another coin, he punched a hole in that one and did it all over again. This time it only took him a little more than ten minutes. Setting the exceptions up on that one, he checked the results and then passed the first coin to Roxy.

  "What's this?"

  "It's the new protection from scrying spell I've worked out; Jo's using it now too. It's a lot better than the one I've been casting on you."

  "How do I?"

  "You can just put it in your pocket for now, but as long as it's on you, it'll work. We can get a chain or something for it later."

  Roxy smiled, "Thanks, Hon! Now, let's hit the mall and replace some of those clothes you lost."

  "And get me a new laptop as well, I guess," Sean agreed.

  "I could use some clothes too," Jolene sighed. "I just wonder if it's safe to go back to my apartment?"

  Sean shrugged, "Why take the chance? Let's drop by the post office, to mail these chains first, then yeah, shopping. After that, maybe some cash from the bank."

  Sitting back in the seat while they drove through town, Sean made a tarball of the spell on the coin. It was a lot smaller than the one on the chain, and pulling out a third coin, he unpacked the tarball on to that. He got a little dizzy for a brief moment, from the magical surge, but again, most of the magic came back to him, it hadn't really used all that much. What he found interesting was that there was now a hole in the coin, just like the other one, even though he hadn't punched one. Also the exception files were there for him, Roxy, and Jolene as well.

  Thinking back to the chains, he wondered how much harder would it be, if he was just casting the spell on to iron or steel ones? The finished products weren't gold or silver, or any single precious metal; they were obviously an alloy of several. So somehow he was transmuting a precious metal into a lot less precious combination of metals.

  He'd have to find a physics book. Something about that just didn't seem exactly right.

  Thursday Night

  "Well, that's it," Sean sighed and closed his new laptop. "The new website is up, I've made the submittal for the go-fund-me page, and I just finished updating my social media pages. I even opened up an account with one of the online sticker companies; all we need now is the artwork."

  Roxy nodded, "I got my friend working on it. She said she'll start having drawings in a week."

  "So," Jolene asked, "now what?"

  Sean sighed and rubbed his temples, they were sitting in a coffee shop using the wifi and he'd drunk way too much coffee. That along with the stress of everything was starting to get to him.

  "I have no idea, tomorrow's my birthday and everyone thinks some sort of 'message' or something is going to be delivered to me by my father from beyond the grave or something."

  "Maybe he sent you a telegram via western-union, you know, like in the movie?"

  Sean shook his head, "Even if they still do that, which I doubt, how would they ever find me? Plus my dad was a magic user; I'd sort of expect him to use, oh, I don't know," Sean sighed, "magic?"

  "Honestly, how do you even send a message to someone twelve years in the future?"

  "Maybe it'll unlock on your birthday, like the books did?" Roxy suggested.

  "Maybe, I donno, if this was my dad's biggest secret, I would think he'd want to do something to keep it from ever falling into the wrong people's hands."

  "And there sure are a lot of those these days, aren't there?" Roxy agreed with a sigh.

  "The most obvious method," Jolene said, in obvious thought, "would be to do something that would attract your attention to a specific place. So you'd go there."

  "But then everyone would see it," Sean pointed out.

  "True, but until the seers started seeing, you'd have been the only one to realize that it was for you, being your birthday and all. Plus whatever it does, it could easily be set to only activate when you came near."

  "Makes sense," Roxy nodded.

  "Yeah," Sean agreed, "it does, but what could you do to attract attention in Reno of all places? And without freaking out all the regular people?" Sean sighed again, "And of course, if that is what he did, then every magic user in town is gonna know what it's for, and we'll be dealing with that as well."

  "Where did you live, before your father died?" Jolene asked.

  "Down by Thomas Creek."

  "Whoa, that's a pretty pricey neighborhood!"

  Sean frowned, "We were rich. Until they took everything away that is. Why?"

  "Well, if your father wanted to do something that you would see, don't you think he'd do it near where you lived?"

  Roxy shook her head, "I think we're going about this all the wrong way. Sean, did you have a favorite place that your dad used to take you? Someplace that he knew you loved?"

  "Well yeah, the railroad..." Sean stopped and looked at Roxy, "I remember now, how did I ever forget?"

  "The geas," Jolene supplied.

  "For my seventh and eighth birthday, my dad took me to the railroad museum in Carson City. I loved that place! He knew some of the people rebuilding the old steam locomotives; we used to get tours of the workrooms in the back. I remember him telling me that it was one of his favorite places because of all the craftsmanship!"

  "Sounds like that might be the place then," Roxy smiled.

  "Well we better get going," Sean said and started to put all of his stuff away.

  "What's the rush?"

  "It's almost ten," Sean said and then looked at his watch a second time; he was surprised that they hadn't been kicked out yet! The looks on the faces of the two people behind the counter kind of made it clear that they wanted to close soon.

  "It'll take about an hour to get there, and then we need to scope the place out, maybe find a place to stay, because for all I know, whatever is going to happen, may just happen at midnight."

  "Yeah, let's get going," Roxy agreed and she and Jolene both got up and followed Sean to the exit.

  "Oh, shit," Sean swore as he stepped out the door. There, across the parking lot, were four people, obviously waiting for them. Three of them looked to be in their mid-thirties, and definitely looked like they were only there to watch out for the fourth one, who looked much older. That one's hair was white, though short, and he had a goatee, also white. "Trouble," Sean growled in a low voice.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Sean Valens, I presume?" The older man spoke up and took a step forward.

  Sean activated his monitor spell to see if he was being scryed and reaching inside his vest, he put his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  "I only wish to talk," the old man said and cast a spell at Sean.

  Sean would have missed it if he hadn't had the monitor spell running; the gesture was so minor and discrete. The cast spell hit his firewall, and went nowhere.

  "If you just want to talk, why are you casting at me?"

  "Nothing more than a simple paralysis spell, it'll wear off shortly. I'd rather not be shot, you understand."

  Sean stood there, unmoving for the moment, as he recalled that paralysis and sleep spells all affected the mind, but his firewall blocked those things rather effectively now.

  That was an interesting side effect, and gave him some ideas for another spell. But first, he had to deal with this.

  "Who are you, and what do you want?"

  "I am Arthur Troy, I'm the current head of the local Council of Sapientia, and I must say that I'm a bit concerned over just what's been going on these last two weeks."

  "You're concerned?" Sean boggled at him. "If you're so concerned, why aren't you going after the others? You know
, the people who have tried to kidnap me, murder me, who've murdered my friend, kidnapped my mother, blew up my house and burned my apartment down?"

  "Yes, well, I do regret all of that, but we had nothing to do with any of it."

  "Then you have nothing to do with me either."

  "Unfortunately, your actions do. You see, if you continue your father's work, it could lead to open conflict that would bring us all to the attention of the world at large. We simply can not have that. It would lead to many problems for all of us."

  "Listen, old man," Sean growled. "I didn't start this, but I sure as hell am going to finish it, I no longer have any choice! It's win or die for me now, and I'm not all that fond of dying."

  "You really do not want the Council of Sapientia as your opponents," Arthur warned, and Sean noticed him make another hand motion as another spell bounced off of his firewall. Sean made note of the spell 'object', he'd puzzle it out later.

  "Wrong, it's you who need to be worried," Sean replied hotly, "because your spells won't work on me, and if you cast another one," Sean drew his pistol and pointed at the man, "you're going to be late."

  "Late?" Arthur looked confused.

  "As in the 'late Arthur Troy.' You've got ten seconds to get in your car, and leave."

  "So, you can practice magic?" Arthur looked surprised.

  "Again, not like I had any choice, so I suggest you don't force me to kill you and your men. Eight seconds."

  Arthur sighed and turned back towards the car, "Jolene, please try to talk some sense into the boy," Arthur mentioned to the others, "Let's go."

  "How'd you find us, Arthur?" Jolene called, "We're scry proof!"

  "Oh really now, Jo, do you think I'm dumb?" Arthur got into the back of the car, as the others also got inside.

  Sean watched as the car started up and slowly pulled out, Arthur lowering his window as they drove by.

  "I put an alert on his credit card," Arthur smiled, "old man indeed."

  Sean waited until they'd pulled out of the parking lot, then turned to Jolene, "He's?"

  "My uncle," Jolene shrugged.

  "What?"

  "Magical ability is inherited, Hon, I thought you'd figured that out by now?"

  "So everyone's related?"

  Jolene shrugged, "Not directly, but if you go back far enough, I'm sure we've all got a common ancestor or three. Now I think we should split before anyone else shows up."

  Sean nodded and they quickly went over to their car, "What was that second spell he cast?"

  "Sleep spell. I think he was trying to show off a little."

  "Well, that didn't work out for him, did it? Roxy, could you drive?"

  "Sure, why?"

  "I want to work on some more spells. I have an idea I want to try out."

  Arthur sighed as they drove away; his niece had always been the wild card in the family. When it was discovered that her magic was too weak to follow in the family's traditions, it had broken his sister's heart. When Jolene had gone missing, everyone thought she'd just taken her life, to hide her family's shame.

  Then three years later she'd come back, a tantric witch. And not just any tantric witch, oh no, his niece had somehow made her way to India and studied with the head of the tantric covens. She was sweeter, sexier, and from all reports a total seductress and rather accomplished in the bedroom.

  Two marriages had quickly been destroyed by her. The women in them, Arthur had later found out, had been exceptionally abusive to Jolene before her disappearance. After that, to all appearances, she'd settled down at the local college, with a nice stable of boyfriends, some of whom Arthur suspected where respectable members of both his council as well as a few of the others.

  While the rest of the family was now cool to her, Arthur had grown to respect his niece. She'd made the best of her situation and had come back to rub her success in the face of all those who had doubted her or slighted her. He always invited her to all of the family outings, and when she showed, he made sure to treat her like the rest of his nieces and nephews, and watched with quiet amusement as she baffled them all.

  And now, to his surprise, he just discovered that she'd taken up with Ben Valens' son.

  The whole Valens affair had been a rather messy one, and his niece had to have heard about it, she'd probably heard about her grandfather's role in it as well.

  And yet, she'd sided with this Sean.

  "James?"

  "Yes, Boss?" James asked from the front seat, next to Dean, who was driving.

  "I want to know everything about Sean Valens you can find. Where he lived, how much money he has in the bank, where he worked, where his mother worked, his high school and college records. All of that."

  "Sure thing, Boss."

  "You want me to follow them?" Charles, the guard sitting next to him asked.

  Arthur nodded slowly. The last thing he wanted was for his niece to get hurt.

  "Pull over when we're out of sight, Dean."

  "Sure thing, Boss!"

  Arthur turned to Charles, "Don't let them spot you, and don't do anything other than watch them. Find out what they're driving, where they're going. Don't try to get too close, and don't tell anyone who you're following or why. My niece sees something in this young man, and I want to know what it is before I try talking to him again."

  "Okay, Boss."

  Arthur sat in thought as the car pulled over and Charles got out, James had already called the backup car that had been waiting around the block to come and pick up Charles. He always kept an extra car nearby when conducting dangerous or clandestine meetings, just in case he needed someone followed, or needed to stop someone from following him.

  Sean hunkered down into his classroom almost immediately and started on another feature to his firewall spell. Simply put Sean created a honeypot trap that all blocked spells would go into and added a logging and an archiving function. All attacks would be logged, and the spell 'objects' that were now blocked by his firewall would be automatically 'tarred.' Next he added another feature that would allow him to 'play back' or actually cast those spells back immediately. The hard part was coming up with a naming convention, eventually he simply settled on the the number of which attack it was on that day. He'd have to make sure that he managed it well, so it didn't become a complete mess. But if nothing else, it would teach him more about how each person constructed their spells.

  But the best part about the new 'archiving' function was that it drained the energy out of the spell as it was archived, so he'd gain energy from it. Which would definitely help if he was under attack, as shield spells were costly.

  That made Sean wonder if he could attach the same function to his shield spell, but the more he looked at it, the more impossible it seemed. The objects became physical before they contacted the target, and the ability to convert physical objects into energy just wasn't possible it seemed.

  Energy attacks were different, because energy could be manipulated, though from what he'd read so far it seemed that some forms of energy were harder to deal with than others. But in the cases of those attacks you were trying to overwhelm your victim's ability to deal with the energy being supplied. That wasn't easy against an experienced or trained magic user of course, so energy attacks, like lightning or heat were typically only used against mundanes or other non-magic wielding targets.

  When Sean finally checked out of his classroom he found that they were parked in front of a motel in Carson City.

  "Ah, back with us!" Roxy smiled and kissed him. "Jolene got us a room, and we moved some of our stuff in there.

  "Well, I want to drive by the museum and get a look at it before tomorrow," Sean told her.

  "We already did. It's closed. We made a lap around the parking lot, there were some lights on and a few cars, I guess someone was working there. But that was about it."

  "I'd really like to go back there," Sean sighed.

  "Well, it's only about a half mile south of us, so we could just walk on down t
here, but I'd rather wait until it's a lot later out, with less people around."

  Sean nodded, "That sounds like a plan then, let's go inside."

  Midnight at the Railroad

  "Sean, wake up," Roxy was shaking his foot.

  "What?" Sean opened his eyes, and sat up quickly.

  "I think we have trouble," Roxy sighed.

  Grabbing his pants, Sean started to get dressed. "What is it?"

  "Look out the front window, carefully."

  Grabbing his holster and putting it on, Sean walked over to the spot where Roxy had the shades propped open a little bit.

  The parking lot looked fine, but there were a bunch of cars across the street, and as Sean watched someone came running across the street and started to check out their car.

  "Jo, you don't think your uncle sold us out, do you?" Sean asked and grabbing his shirt he put it on and checking his watch he stepped into his shoes. It was a little past midnight; they'd been here about two hours.

  "Him?" Jolene shook her head, "No. One of the men with him? Possibly."

  "Well they at least they don't know what room we're in," Roxy said peeking out the window. "Uh-oh, one of them is running over to the front desk."

  "Grab your packs," Sean said and went around to the back window, grabbing his as he did, and peeking out the shades.

  "No one back here, yet. Jo, you wouldn't know any silence spells, would you?"

  Jolene laughed, "With the way Rox moans? Of course I do!"

  Roxy turned rather beat red as Sean grinned.

  "You're not all that quiet yourself, you know. Could you cast it over here? I need to bust out this window so we can leave."

  Jolene nodded and made a few gestures.

  "Go for it," Jolene said.

  Sean nodded and picking up the chair he quickly busted out the glass and framework of the window.